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denborg. A small Sunday School also is kept in the room, at which about 25 children usually attend. And at the house of Mr. Tideswell (a very worthy and humble-minded member who resides at Longton) there is a small New Church library, where the books are lent gratuitously, and to the distribution of which he very kindly and zealously attends. All this is done by a voluntary subscription among themselves. Most of them are operatives, and can ill spare any of their hard-earned income; and yet so much warmth and zeal is manifested amongst them, that we may reasonably hope not only that the true light will be replenished with oil and kept burning, but that many will see it and rejoice and become like themselves worthy receivers of the heavenly treasures they would fain impart to others. Doubtless this welltimed visit of Mr. Howarth has cheered and inspired this little flock with fresh zeal and courage in their labours for the truth; and let us fervently hope it will be

a blessing to others who are seeking for it. There, where the good seed is now sown, there is a large field for cultivation; and though the labourers are indeed few, their hearts and hands are in the work, and we are assured that He who giveth the early and the latter rain will not let them toil in vain, but in due season bring forth fruits of increase. While Mr. Howarth was amongst them he baptized ten or twelve children of various ages, from one year to ten or upwards. Thus has this worthy minister, like his great Master, been going about doing good; and let us hope that abundant blessings will rest upon his labours, and that the little society at Longton (where similar lectures have never before been given) will " grow in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

I am, gentlemen,
Very faithfully yours,

D. B.

July 13, 1842.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

BIRMINGHAM. THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the teachers and friends of the Sunday schools, was held on Friday the 15th of May. The annual festival of our schools took place on the same day. Immediately after noon the children of the free-day and Sunday schools assembled in anticipation of the usual festivities.

Previous to forming for procession, the whole of the children, being in the large room, sang, in a most delightful manner, a sweet hymn, of which the Sunday schools generally in Birmingham are exceedingly fond, and which we are glad to find in the new edition of the Rev. E. Madeley's Hymns, lately published (Hymn 169).

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On their return they were conducted into church, where they listened with attention to an instructive and appropriate address; after which they sang a hymn, and were then conducted back to the schoolrooms, where an abundant supply of buns and coffee was served to every scholar. At about half past 4 o'clock they retired, evidently full of glee, and highly satisfied with their afternoon's recreation.

In the evening the teachers and friends of the Sunday school assembled to tea; after which, the Rev. E. Madeley having taken the chair, the proceedings of the evening were commenced with singing and prayer. The chairman then stated the objects for which the meeting was assembled, in a manner calculated to encourage and stimulate the teachers to increased exertions in their pious and useful work.

The committee's report being read, it was resolved, That the report, now read, be approved, and forwarded for insertion

in the Intellectual Repository, and also to the Sunday School Union, with a brief report of the proceedings of the present meeting.

After this, several of our excellent friends addressed the meeting. The chief topics of remark were, the importance of Sunday-school instruction, and also the necessity and means of giving to our Sunday schools a more decidedly New Church character: considerable freedom of expression and unity of sentiment prevailed throughout the meeting.

At the close of the meeting, it was resolved unanimously, That the measure of peace and prosperity, which has attended our exertions in the cause of education and religion during the past year, demands our unfeigned and hearty gratitude to the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and also an acknowledgement, that from him only proceed all blessing and good, and to him alone are all praise and glory due.

The meeting was one of great delight and edification. The inspiriting and instructive addresses, the general pleasure and mutual love, which pervaded the proceedings of the day, formed a most excellent commencement of a new Sabbath-school year.

THE TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BIRMINGHAM NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH SUNDAY-SCHOOL COMMITTEE. -In the present day the necessity and importance of Sunday schools to the good order, and almost to the existence of our civil institutions, is so generally admitted, that it requires no confirmation by lengthened argument in this report.

Your committee, in laying before you the 12th Annual Report of the Sunday school, will confine themselves to a general statement of what has been done during the past year. In doing this they would require your patient attention to the matters of fact they have to submit to you, and at the same time solicit your charitable forbearance, should they in any respect have acted not precisely in accordance with your view; remembering that none are proof against error, and

that he who thinks he stands most firmly, is, perhaps, most liable to fall.

The endeavour, which is observable on all hands to reduce information on every subject, whether commercial, scientific, or moral, to the bird's-eye view of a tabular register, is a peculiar feature of the present age.

Your Committee have been led from a sense of the importance of such information to attempt to collect the various statistics of your Sunday schools, and to preserve them in a concise tabular form.

Their efforts, in this respect, have, in a great measure, been crowned with

success.

During the last year they have kept a complete register of the attendance of both teachers and scholars; so that it is known how many times each teacher has been present; whether early or late; how many times absent; whether in this case he provided a substitute; consequently, whether his class was left during the whole or half of any day without a teacher to conduct it. In respect to the scholars, besides the particular registration of each individual, your committee have registered the daily and quarterly attendance of each class. This, besides the satisfactory statistical information it yields, is a true index of the amount of attention and industry bestowed by each teacher upon his class. From a contemplation of this register, your committee have been led to observe how immediately a class is affected by any irregularity on the part of its teacher, and feel themselves compelled to call the attention of every teacher to the paramount necessity of the most rigid selfexamination. Not only is punctuality of attendance requisite, but also the most careful attention to our words and actions; because matters the most trivial, which would pass unobserved by adults, are noticed and remembered by a child; thus an injurious impression, the influence of which we cannot calculate, may be made upon a class by an incident, of which the teacher himself was not even conscious.

In the system of registering the visits

to absent scholars, your committee feel they have been successful, inasmuch as they have, by its aid, kept a correct statement of the degree of punctuality manifested by the teachers, and also of the several cases of absence; and, at the same time, there is given additional evidence of the necessity of such visits.

In pursuance of the recommendation of the Church, for limiting the number of scholars in the Sunday school, your committee have carried out the measures suggested by the committee for the last year, who defined the amount of irregularity which (providing there was not some unavoidable cause) should exclude a child from the school.

At the conclusion of each quarter, the attendance of every scholar is examined, in connextion with the visiting reports of his teacher, and the rules alluded to above applied, with the greatest lenity consistent with order; but such has been the irregularity, principally arising from the lateness of scholars, that from 220 the boys' school became reduced to 170, and the girls' school from 120 to 74.

It is a fact worthy of remark, that previous to the application of the exclusive rules mentioned above, it not unfrequently happened that the school was opened with no more scholars than teachers present; so that the great benefit has been to promote the regular, and, more especially, the early attendance of scholars. Although the application of this law has swept 100 names from our books, the average daily attendance has been but slightly decreased.

Attendance of Teachers. Total in girls's chool 17 average present 15 boys ditto 27

25

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By whom have been received twenty Bibles, six Testaments, six Liturgies, five large Hymn-Books, fifty-six small ditto, two Sunday Lessons, and 136 small books, including Catechisms.

Your committee have received from the Rev. E. Madeley, the following stationery, on account of the General School Funds, for the use of the Sunday schools: two and a half dozens Testaments, three sets of copies, each small text, and large hands, about nine dozen steel pens, twelve copies of the Acts of the Apostles, halfbound in cloth, two sets of Spelling-cards, and the binding of one and a half dozen Bibles.

The principal want experienced by the schools, and under which they have been labouring for a considerable length of time, is a supply of suitable lessons for the elementary classes.

The scanty supply of good New Church school books is greatly to be regretted, and your committee are assured that it is felt throughout the Church.

There are but few books published containing the elements of reading and spelling, the method and arrangement of which your committee can approve; and these are either so high in price as to be beyond our reach for general use, or are rendered unfit for use by the errors of doctrine they inculcate.

This your committee hope will be taken up spiritedly by the Sunday School Union, who it may reasonably be expected will supply the church with school literature, suitable to the existing wants of the Church, combining every available improvement with sound religious doctrine.

Your committee think it highly advisable that the elementary lessons should be printed on sheets, to be pasted upon boards, which, when properly used are much better suited to keep the attention, and less liable to be destroyed.

Your committee are justified in concluding from the interest displayed at the two-monthly meetings for mutual instruction and edification, that the pleasure and also the importance of frequent association for mutual intercourse, is fully appreciated by the teachers generally.

This has also received confirmation from an application having been made for them to be held every six weeks instead of two months; which application, for reasons we could not overrule, has not been complied with.

The essays read at this meeting during the year have been as follows: One by the Rev. E. Madeley, On object teaching in connexion with a development of the interrogatory system as applicable to our schools. One by Mr. G. Haseler, On the necessity of cultivating a desire for New Church association among the youth of our schools. Mr. G. R. Haywood, On the necessity of giving to our schools a more decidedly New Church character. Mr. J. A. Best, On the nature of rewards when used as an incentive to learning. And Messrs. J. Rabone and R. Touks, On subjects intimately connected with education.

Your committee believe the general character of the schools has advanced during the past year.

There is evidence of a more decided New Church tone of feeling and increased steadiness of attention perceptible in the general conduct of the elder scholars; instances in proof of which may be observed by all who attend the Church-meeting on Monday evenings. There exists a desire for association among the elder youths in the school; not the association of youth for mere temporary gratification, but, we rejoice to say, for intellectual and moral improvement. These little combinations, attended with the advice and supervision of the teacher, your committee regard as being likely to produce most happy results; more especially as we can observe some instances where the good of the Church is especially had in view. We would urge you as teachers to foster such a desire in your several classes, and we

would solicit a notice from you of the formation and progress of any such assotion.

Your committee can see in this a means, whereby the youth of our schools may be held more closely united with the Church.

The teachers of the girls' school have lately established a Dorcas meeting, to which they have invited the elder girls of the upper classes. The meetings, we understand, are of a very interesting character, and we doubt not will be of great use, not only to the members themselves, but to those objects of charity who by their instrumentality may be assisted.

Your committee have great pleasure in acknowledging the manner in which the announcement by the Sunday School Union, of their intention to publish a Child's Magazine, was then responded to by the teachers, and also the zeal manifested in giving their names as subscribers towards its publication. It was desired by the Editors to know as nearly as possible, how many copies would be taken by each school : on this being made known to the teachers, they immediately guaranteed to purchase 160 copies of the first six numbers. Your committee have pleasure in stating that the demand is now 170, and is likely to increase.

The want of such a work had long been felt, and we think that its value is fully appreciated. The number now printed is, we believe, about 3000.

Of the Sunday-school library, your committee have great pleasure in reporting considerable improvement.

At the last annual meeting the library was indebted to the treasurer 5s, The treasurer has now in hand 18s.4 d.; which with a donation of 11. from Mr. Bucknall and family, of Stroud; and another donation of 11. 11s. 4d., being the amount of forfeits paid by several of the teachers and friends, denominating themselves "the Early Rising Association," makes a total balance in favour of the library of 31. 9s. 8žd.

The donation of 1l. 11s. 4d. is, by the donors requested to be applied towards the erection of a new and commodious

book-case for the library; which, on account of the smallness of the present one, your committee are of opinion must receive immediate attention. Forty volumes have been added to the library by donation during the year, and seventeen by purchase and exchange.

Your committee being aware there were many books in the library not worth keeping, and others not deemed suitable, they made the necessary examination, and took a considerable number from the shelves, and exchanged them for better and more suitable ones. Though the library has thus been greatly reduced in number, it has been in reality considerably improved.

The number of volumes at present in the library is 278. The number of subscribers to the library during the first quarter of the year were but few, as they were also during the whole of the year preceding; but during the last three quarters they have been gradually increasing. The number in the last quarter was thirty. This increase your committee attribute in a great measure to the attention and industry of their librarian.

Your committee would conclude their report by commending their labours to your most charitable construction; trusting that their imperfect efforts may be crowned with abundant fruit, to the honour and glory of the only wise God our Saviour, who will ever receive the humble attempts of his true followers with the gracious expression he applied to Mary, "she hath done what she could."

Humbly praying that, by sincerely endeavouring to apply the truths of the Holy Word to the regulation of our minds and conduct, we may all avoid even the appearance of evil, and thus extending the influence of the Lord's true church, and drawing ourselves nearer to God, and to a state more fully receptive of his divine blessing, we shall be prepared for the more full discharge of our duties as teachers and members of his church below, and as future denizens of the New Jerusalem above.

ISAAC BEST, Secretary.

TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT TO MR. ADAM HAWORTH.-PRESENTATION OF A DIAMOND RING.-On Sunday, the 26th ult., the Russell Street Society, Liverpool, assembled in the body of the church, after the conclusion of divine worship, for the purpose of expressing their grateful acknowledgments, and presenting a token of remembrance to Mr. Adam Haworth, of Manchester; who, in consequence of the severe indisposition of Mr. Abbot, their leader, which deprived the society of his valuable services, has gratuitously performed the duties of minister during the last year. The excitement usual on such occasions, having subsided, the secretary, Mr. Skeaf, who had been deputed to convey such expressions, came forward, and after referring to the important services rendered to this society, and thereby to the church in general, by Mr. Haworth, thus observed-"We have here, my friends, a striking instance of what a man, imbued with the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem, can effect; for during an inclement winter, with a constitution keenly susceptible of every change of climate, and, doubtless, at considerable personal inconvenience, (this I say, not with a view to flatter Mr. Haworth, who is superior to any such influence,) he did not once disappoint the society, or cause it to experience any interruption. How much, then, might be accomplished in aiding this great and glorious cause, by every member following the example of our worthy friend; for though we cannot individually fill the distinguished and honourable position which Mr. Haworth has occupied, still there are duties which devolve upon each of us, and which, if we fulfil them to the best of our abilities with fidelity and zeal, we shall be performing uses of a high and honourable nature; " as nothing is truly honourable but what is useful.' a ring is the emblem of eternity, and is the beautiful symbol of the marriage union, the heavenly marriage of goodness and truth, so in this instance, let it be the token of that indissoluble affection, which we hope will subsist between this society and our esteemed friend. I have, therefore, great pleasure in pre

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